WHEREIN AA GILL ANNOUNCES HE ISN'T ENGLISH: In the Times, which is of course the appropriate place for any English person to announce they aren't English. Well done.

This anger is also the source of England’s most admirable achievement — their heroic self-control. It’s the daily struggle of not giving in to their natural inclination to run amok with a cricket bat.

It's why they can't dance.

It’s not in the games that the English excel, it’s in making the rules that govern them, and the committees that oversee those rules. It’s in controlling the consequences of unbridled competitiveness. ... But of course, for the English, just getting off the pitch without their opponent’s ear in their pocket is a personal victory over their natural national inclination.

I suppose you might call it wit, and the definition of wit is a joke that doesn’t make you laugh.